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Friday, 5 July 2013

5 July : Harriet Monroe : Tribute to Swami Vivekananda

ॐ
वीरेश्वराय विद्महे विवेकानन्दाय
धीमहि । तन्नो वीर: प्रचोदयात् ।
Harriet Monroe the founder of Poetry A Magazine of Verse, through
which she introduced many of America 's now famous poets attended
the World's Fair in 1893 and years later in her autobiography, A
Poet's Life, recorded her impressions of the Parliament of
Religions and of Swami Vivekananda:
The Congress of Religions was a triumph for all concerned,
especially for its generalissimo, the Reverend John H. Barrows, of
Chicago 's First Presbyterian Church, who had been preparing it
for two years. When he brought down his gavel upon the "world's
first parliament of religions" a wave of breathless silence swept
over the audience-it seemed a great moment in human history,
prophetic of the promised new era of tolerance and peace. On the
stage with him, at his left, was a black-coated array of bishops
and ministers representing the various familiar Protestant sects
and the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches; at his right
a brilliant group of strangely costumed dignitaries from afar-a
Confucian from China, a Jain from India, a theosophist from
Allahabad, a white-robed Shinto priest and four Buddhists from
Japan, and a monk of the orange robe from Bombay.
It was the last of these, Swami Vivekananda, the magnificent, who
stole the whole show and captured the town. Others of the foreign
groups spoke well-the Greek, the Russian, the Armenian, Mazoomdar
of Calcutta, Dharmapala of Ceylon-leaning, some of these upon
interpreters. Shibata, the Shintu, bowed his wired white headdress
to the ground, spread his delicate hands in suave gestures, and
uttered gravely with serene politeness his incomprehensible words.
But the handsome monk in the orange robe gave us in perfect
English a masterpiece. His personality, dominant, magnetic; his
voice, rich as a bronze bell; the controlled fervor of his
feeling; the beauty of his message to the Western world he was
facing for the first time-these combined to give us a rare and
perfect moment of supreme emotion. It was human eloquence at its
highest pitch.
One cannot repeat a perfect moment-the futility of trying to has
been almost a superstition with me. Thus I made no effort to hear
Vivekananda speak again, during that autumn and winter when he was
making converts by the score to his hope of uniting East and West
in a world religion above the tumult of controversy.

Inspired Talks at Thousand Island Park

Date:

Fri, 2013-07-05

In 1895 - Inspired Talks at Thousand Island Park5th July, 1901.
MY DEAR MARY,
I am very thankful for your very long and nice letter, especially as I
needed just such a one to cheer me up a bit. My health has been and is
very bad. I recover for a few days only; then comes the inevitable
collapse. Well, this is the nature of the disease anyway.
I have been touring of late in Eastern Bengal and
Assam. Assam is, next to Kashmir, the most beautiful country in India,
but very unhealthy. The huge Brahmaputra winding in and out of mountains
and hills, studded with islands, is of course worth one's while to see.
My country is, as you know, the land of waters. But never did I realise
before what that meant. The rivers of East Bengal are oceans of rolling
fresh water, not rivers, and so long that steamers work on them for
weeks.
Sam is with you this year — I am so glad! He must be enjoying the good
things of Europe after his dreary experience in the North. I have not
made any interesting friends of late, and the old ones that you knew of,
have nearly all passed away, even the Raja of Khetri. He died of a fall
from a high tower at Secundra, the tomb of Emperor Akbar. He was
repairing this old grand piece of architecture at his own expense at
Agra, and one day while on inspection, he missed his footing, and it was
a sheer fall of several hundred feet. Thus we sometimes come to grief
on account of our zeal for antiquity. Take care, Mary, don't be too
zealous for your piece of Indian antiquity.
In the Mission Seal, the snake represents mysticism; the sun knowledge;
the worked up waters activity; the lotus love; the swan the soul in the
midst of all.